The Tourism Research Australia data, released on Wednesday, showed 2.57 million visitors came to Queensland in 2016, an increase of 10.2 per cent from the 2.34 million in 2015.

Brisbane alone had 1.19 million international visitors in 2016, up from 1.13 million in 2015, and Cr Quirk said the upwards trajectory would become more pronounced when the city's airport completed its parallel runway in 2020.

"If the numbers look good now, wait 'til we get that second runway," he said.

"Wait 'til we get the Destination Brisbane Queens Wharf development up and going and I think you'll see an absolute explosion in the numbers to Brisbane."

Cr Quirk said as the gateway to Queensland, it was important to attract more direct flights to the capital.

"We have to cast the net as wide as we can in terms of direct flights to Brisbane," he said.

"Certainly, we're seeing now Vancouver to Brisbane coming on line, Abu Dhabi to Brisbane, Shanghai and Beijing both on the verge of coming direct to Brisbane.

"What we've got here is some great opportunities going forward and we will be, and already are, in discussions with Brisbane Airport Corporation around a range of other cities.

"But I think the main emphasis will be in the Asia-Pacific region."

One missing link was to India, which rivalled China for economic growth and had a growing, affluent middle class.

"If you look at the year immediately following the G20, we saw about a 40 per cent growth in international tourism out of India," Cr Quirk said.

"You might recall at that time I did a couple of live crosses, one to 40 million people in India and one to 30 million.

"We had a koala in the Queen Street Mall with interviewers and it's amazing how it's often these small things; we had (Indian) Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi here and while he was here, he unveiled a statue of Ghandi in the Roma Street Parklands.

"All of these things have a noticeable impact."

But still, Cr Quirk conceded, there no direct links to India.

"I think we will see that in the future," he said.

China was Queensland's biggest international market, with 484,000 visitors from that country in 2016 - an increase of 21.4 per cent.

"New Zealand and Taiwan were also star performers, both breaking visitor and expenditure records," Tourism Minister Kate Jones said.

"Taiwan's double-digit growth saw visitation increase 20 per cent with expenditure reaching $222 million up 27 per cent, while New Zealand's 447,000 visitors spent around $600 million."

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said international tourism expenditure in Queensland reached $5.1 billion last year.

"Our top five international markets - China, New Zealand, Japan and the USA - all delivered double-digit holiday visitor number growth," she said.

"Tourism supports more than 220,000 directly and indirectly in Queensland, so such strong growth is good news for jobs."

Despite the record numbers, state opposition tourism spokesman Jon Krause said not enough had been done to market the state internationally.

"Queensland had second-lowest growth in tourist spending last year, and now we are stalled in third place on international visitors while other states like New South Wales and Victoria continue to power ahead," he said.

Meanwhile Brisbane Airport took out two top awards at the 2017 Skytrax World Airport Awards, held in Amsterdam overnight.

The airport was voted the best in the Australia-Pacific region and also won an award for the best airport staff in that region.

Brisbane was also ranked the 16th-best airport in the world and fifth-best in its 20-30 million annual passengers category.

Brisbane Airport Corporation chief executive Julieanne Alroe said they sought to continually improve the customer experience at the airport.

"We're incredibly proud that it is the passengers themselves who travel through Brisbane Airport that have bestowed this honour on us," she said.

"There was no greater accolade than being voted the best by global travellers in the world's most prestigious industry awards."